Ellagic acid is a natural product found in certain fruits, such as strawberries, which has been demonstrated to be effective as an inhibitor of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and dialkyl nitrosamines-induced mutagenesis. In 1982 Wood et al (PNAS: 79: 5513) demonstrated that ellagic acid is a potent inhibitor of the mutagenic activity of benzo[a]pyrine-7,8-dihydrodiol-1,10-epoxide (BPDE) in the well known Ames test.
It has been found, however, by Smart et al Carbinogenesis 7: 1663-16667, 1986 that ellagic acid suffers from very poor pharmacokenetics particularly with respect to poor absorption characteristics from the gastro-intestinal tract and subsequent rapid elimination.